CONTEST: Story11 - Everything is Fair in Love and War

A house without a kitchen

"Clack-clack-clack," Heidi's heels were clattering, happily hurrying to work on the wet, shining asphalt after a night of rain.
Heidi recently received a diploma in architecture and is currently undergoing an internship at an architectural workshop at a research institute engaged in developments in the field of urban construction.

At work, everything was going well for her, and she was among the promising employees waiting for a promotion. Soon she will have to start doing independent projects, and this inspired her even more.

When she came to her workplace that day and turned on the computer, she saw a message about a new task, opening which, she was stunned... it was already her first independent project! After studying the terms of reference, she was more stunned than ever: she had to design a residential house-a mansion without a kitchen...

No less unexpected for her was the following requirement about the absence of internal stairs. Two residential floors, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a winter garden and a library in the attic, an office, a second library and a swimming pool on the ground floor and no stairs between floors.

"So I'll have to make an elevator and an external technical staircase," the girl thought, putting both palms to her cheeks and closing her eyes. Before that, she had to deal only with standard projects, and suddenly such a task immediately.

Heidi tried to imagine a person who needed a house without a kitchen and stairs. Gender, age, hobbies, profession, but some nonsense with schizoid shades came to mind. One thing was clear: this client was rich and extraordinary.

"Although, having saved on the kitchen and stairs, it is already quite possible to think about so many bathrooms," she calculated all the sums in her mind.

There was no mention of the architectural style in the terms of reference, and this complicated the task. She would have to think in different directions and make some sketches if she didn't figure out this point. After contacting the manager, she asked to arrange a meeting or telephone conversation with the client.

The meeting with the customer took place unexpectedly quickly. He called himself and asked to spend it at the station restaurant, where he would arrive in half an hour, then to go on a planned trip. Haley quickly put all the necessary documents in a folder and went to the train station, which was very close.

"Clack-clack," the heels of her shoes clicked in unison with her thoughts. She was pleased that lunch time would not be in vain, because she did not like to waste it on eating and always tried to combine this inevitable process with something more useful.

She was going to meet a man named Gorst, whom she would have to love from the first moment of meeting, regardless of how he would look and behave. This rule, instilled in her at the institute, has been tested more than once by practice on her own experience. Without love there will be no understanding, and without understanding there will be no work. She already liked the name, although there was a catch in it that promised unexpected twists. In her imagination, the man seemed large and confident, and she immediately drowned out the details of his supposed appearance that surfaced in her imagination, because they were caused by some creakiness of his voice: a hooked nose, a sharp look of whitish eyes and a narrow slit of his mouth. This is exactly what she really wouldn't want to see.

Heidi went into a restaurant that struck her with the minimalist aesthetics of the interior and she was asked to go to table number 8, reserved in advance by the customer for the meeting.

...

Gorst was in no hurry, as he was not going to leave the city anywhere. After a recent rather painful divorce from a wife who did not want to part with him and came up with the most incredible reasons that could prevent the completion of the divorce process in his favor, he began to treat women with great caution. and this station restaurant was used not only for business meetings with them, in order to be able to escape on an electric train going in an unknown direction if something goes wrong. He arrived with a suitcase, chatted for half an hour, having warned the next friend candidate about an urgent trip in advance, and disappeared from her forever.

Going to table 8, which he always reserved for his first dates, and seeing behind him something fragile, with tousled black hair on his head, like a teenager who had just crawled out from under the covers, he calmed down internally, and on the third step to the table, he was even inspired, catching from under the girl's bangs a completely reasonable, and not coquettish look of huge eyes.

Gorst also liked that Heidi had already ordered lunch for herself, but he was not hungry, and so after greeting, without touching the menu, he took a folder out of his travel bag to put it on the table instead of lunch. One of the photos that he was going to show the architect to start an important conversation for both of them slipped out of it and flew in the direction of Heidi's plate.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I wasn't going to add such a spicy seasoning to your dish at all!" exclaimed Gorst cheerfully, not at all embarrassed by the expectation that a photo with the tombstone of the great Le Carbusier would appear on a sponge cake covered with thick cream.

...

Heidi was already finishing her dessert, devoting the waiting time to lunch, when she saw a tall blond guy approaching her table.

"If this is a client, then we are almost the same age," she thought with some chagrin: "But it will not be difficult for me to fall in love with him, although it will be difficult to work with such a young client due to a limited budget," she continued the conversation with herself with some relief.

When he approached her desk and introduced himself, there was no doubt that an interesting adventure was waiting for her. Gorst took a folder out of his travel bag with a dashing movement and a photo flew out of it, landing on the table under the edge of her plate with the still half-eaten pudding.

"It's good that it's not in cream," Heidi exclaimed, recognizing in the picture the tombstone of the great Corbusier, whom she loved immensely.

"I didn't plan to start the conversation with this particular photo, but since it flew out by itself, I'll immediately explain what's what, so as not to scare you too much from the doorstep," Gorst said with a laugh, and his voice no longer seemed squeaky to Heidi.

Gorst invited Heidi to continue his lunch and began telling him that when he wandered into this cemetery on a tourist trip to France and saw that his favorite architect, whom he considers a genius, had such a modest tombstone, he realized at that moment about life and death almost everything at once.

He always leaned towards minimalism and constructivism in architecture, but minimalism in this form he never dreamed of, and at that moment he immediately decided that his house, which he had been planning to build for a long time, but did not find the right solution, should be exactly like this and no other. It remains to use this tombstone as a layout and increase it to the desired size, so he thought. But later he realized that with such a decision he would lose a lot of useful space on his small plot of land intended for this construction.

"Now I think that my house could be made up of several cubes, about the same as this one, but not so fancy, simpler," Gorst concluded the story, handing Heidi another photo.

"I want my house to have at least one window like this", - Gorst said, turning over the last photo: "But it's not the city that should enter my house through it, but the forest. My plot is located in such a way that there are views of both, but the task is to let in only the forest.

Moving the plate with the pudding crumbs, Heidi laid her folder on the table and opened it, got the sketches she had made in the office, waiting for a call from Gorst, not even knowing his name yet. She drew the first version of any project the way she sees it. These variants consisted of several communicating cubes connected by external stairs.

"I've finally found my architect!", - Gorst shouted to the whole hall after seeing these sketches of Heidi, made long before meeting him. From somewhere came the sound of broken dishes and the words: "For luck"

"It remains to clarify the moment with the strange absence of a kitchen and dissuade you from installing a pool in the house, because its presence is associated with a lot of troubles. The pool can be made in a separate room, for example, in such a round tower from the tombstone complex. You have a large family, judging by the number of bedrooms, but I hope you will agree with everyone about excluding the pool from the house project if you managed to resolve the issue of abandoning the kitchen," - Heidi said.

"I don't have a family yet, and the lack of a kitchen won't speed up the process of its appearance, because it's very difficult to meet a woman who doesn't want to see pots and other kitchen utensils as much as I don't want it. The absence of a kitchen in the house is a very thin filter and I will use it, no matter how I am dissuaded. I will refuse the pool with pleasure. The waterfall in the lower winter garden, which we will build instead of a swimming pool, will be enough for me. The living water in my house should not be only from the shower.", - Gorst said very firmly and confidently.

"Now everything is clear to me about the lack of an internal staircase, although I didn't ask you about it, and now I'm ready to get to work," Heidi said, folding papers into a folder: "Our next meeting will be in the office, because I won't be able to bring my computer to the restaurant."

...

They said a warm goodbye and Heidi thought that it looked like she would build this house together with Gorst for herself, regardless of the amount of the budget and the lack of a kitchen, which she also did not need for self-affirmation and career.

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